


Bootleg Hack

by Corycides



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: AU, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:01:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4843319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ended - Charie Matheson's world anyhow - when Rachel Matheson was caught smuggling illegal tech across state lines. It meant she had to put her plans to shake the dust of her claustrophobic home town off her heels, getting a job in the family business to help support her Dad and her brother.</p><p>Still, a fast girl who likes fast cars is never short of things to occupy her time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bootleg Hack

**Author's Note:**

> The cars screech past on either side, licence plates blacked out and engines screaming.  Connor/Charlie AND Charlie/Bass
> 
> I cheated. A bit!

 

1: Straight Roads are for Fast Cars, Turns are for Fast Drivers

She picked up two ticks just outside of Bandera. The cars peeled out of a derelict industrial estate - top-range sports cars running dark with reflective windows and blacked out license plates. Charlie kept her foot light on the break and threw a couple of sharp turns and hard lefts their way, one eye on the mirror to see how they held up.

Not bad. They over-drove the turns, but they stuck.

Charlie grinned into the dark. Fine. Let’s see how good these ticks were. She hit the gas. Under the dented black hood of her Tempest the scavenged ambulance engine growled, the needle on the speedometer ticking around to illegal even in backwoods partition Texas. Keeping one hand on the wheel, fingers flexing around the leather, she reached out and punched the sound system on.

‘Copperhead Road’ blasted out of the speakers.

She laughed and shook her head, taking a screeching left on Lemon Creek Lane. The houses had been abandoned for years, with boarded up windows and broken in doors, so there was no one to disturb.

‘Nice playlist, Danny,’ she murmured. ‘But who needs booby traps when you have the Sisters?’

Whistling along to Steve Earle’s gravelly defiance, Charlie peeled rubber along the 41. She took the turn onto the first sister without tapping her brakes, biting her lip as the car fishtailed. The back tire hit the dirt, kicking up dust and shredded grass, then she wrenched it back under control.

For some drivers, their cars were like extensions of their own body. They drove like it was a ballet. Charlie didn’t. She bullied the car into doing what she wanted, man-handling it like it didn’t outweigh her by 3000 lbs. Or like it didn’t have a hundred grand’s worth of bathtub tech lashed down in the trunk.

Now they were out of city limits, the ticks got nasty. They nipped at her heels, clipping her bumper twice to try and spin her off the road. Charlie dropped the window and stuck her arm out, jamming one finger up in the air. Even at this speed, the air was hot as it whipped against her skin. She yanked her arm back in and hit the turbocharger, sucking in a quick, gleeful breath as the car surged forwards.

Fifteen years ago the Sisters had been a fairground ride for drivers, a bit of a thrill but no real danger if you didn’t do something stupid. That had been before the Collapse and partition. These days, the government was too busy trying to keep the ass in its pants to worry about paving Hill Country rat-runs. Now it was a death trap of potholes and cracked asphalt, gravel pits and oil slicks.

Charlie had been driving it since she was eleven. She’d learned every hairpin bend and bad-stretch the hard way. Two pick-ups and her first bike had died out here, corpses stripped of parts and left to moulder in the sun. These days she knew it like the back of her hand.

She swerved round a rock in the road and yanked the car around a series of switchbacks up into the hills. Her shoulders were aching with the weight of the car, but the ticks lights dropped back as they had to break. Reaching the stretch of straight road on the other side, she hit the brakes and spun the car. Her shoulder hit the door and she slammed her foot down on the accelerator again, heading back down the road.

The ticks screeched past on either side, engines screaming so loud they drowned out the music. One clipped her mirror and veered off, tires jolting as they hit the hard shoulder. A tire burst, sparks spraying up from the rim as it scraped the rocks. The other tried to turn in the road, but stalled out.

Charlie killed the lights and headed back to the main road. She had an appointment to keep, and a pay cheque to collect.

 

2\. A Vague Wish for Something Salty

In 2012 the tech bubble burst under Colorado, swallowing half the state in a sinkhole of hungry grey goo. Theories varied as to exactly what had happened. The government claimed it had been corporate experiments. Everyone else thought a skunkworks lab had gone bad in the desert.

There was no-one left alive to ask, and the goo was spreading.

Drive west from the Twisted Sisters and in nine hours - seven in a customised Pontiac Tempest - you'd be at the edge of the quarantine zone. Not that it worked. People got in. Nanites got out. Every few weeks the government EMP-bombed the country to purify the atmosphere, dropping the country into the dark ages for a day while they waited for the world to reboot.

Politicians were impeached; generals retired; international measures were enacted; and nanotechnology was banned. On top of all that, the economy collapsed and Texas seceded from the United States in what one Sheriff Miles Matheson once described as 'the most fucked up game of chicken we're ever likely to see'. Other states - furious at the damage no-one would take credit for - followed suit, unity collapsing like a house of cards.

It didn't really take. Independence was a pipe dream, particularly when the rest of the world had declared you and all your works persona non grata, like a technological Nanite Mary. No-one officially rejoined, but certain concessions were made and alliances witnessed. Partition instead of secession, partial independence...under agreed oversight.

Things hadn't really changed that much though. People still had to make a living whether they were under the Texas Protectorate or still a loyal Cali-American. And a technological prohibition, just made the prices go up...if you knew where to find the tech-stills.

 

3\. How Fast you Hit the Wall

The buyer in San Antonio was a sharp-faced Italian, sweating through her silk suit by the Riverside. She was new - Charlie had heard the last contact got caught running the tech out of Houston - but the meet went without a hitch. Charlie gave the Italian a Faraday bag full of death and profit; the Italian gave her an envelope stuffed with sixty grand’s worth of dog dollars.

After that, all Charlie had to do was drive home.

The lights were still out as Charlie reached home. Everytime the country went dark, it seemed to take longer to reset the systems. Good for her business, not great for her life in general. She pulled off the road ten miles out of Medina, wheels bumping in old, dried ruts in the road.

The old shack at the end of the road had been a hunting hide once, or something. It had been years since anyone other than Charlie had used it though. She rolled the Tempest in, the engine making the old boards rattle.

‘Good run,’ she said, reaching for the keys. Stupid, she supposed. The Tempest was old tech, any electrical parts stripped out or non-essential.  That’s why it was a sweet ride for a dark run. Still, she liked to let it know it had done a good job. ‘I’ve got a new set of rods on order, so I’ll be back soon.’

The engine grumbled to silence as she turned the keys. Charlie popped the door open and slid out, stretching as she stood up. The San Antonio run was only a couple of hours, but it was always felt longer when she didn’t have anything illegal in the car.

She leaned back in and grabbed the cash from the glovebox, stuffing it into the back of her shorts so it was hidden under her t-shirt. Her bike was tucked against the wall under a bird-shit covered tarp. She tossed the tarp over the Tempest, wiping her hands on her ass, and wheeled the bike out of the shed and up to the road.

One more stop and she was done.

The house was up in the hills, behind a rusted gate and down an unkept, narrow road. A good-natured, excitable dog lived in the yard. It had never even bitten a squirrel, but it started barking the minute it heard the gate squeak a mile down the lane.

Charlie parked her bike behind the flat-wheeled pick-up and hopped over the fence, absently scritching Lambo’s ears as he shouldered up against her leg. The door wasn’t locked; it swung open under her hand.

‘How many times have I told you to lock the door,’ she yelled, kicking it shut behind her and heading into the kitchen. Lambo followed her in, pointedly sticking his nose into the empty bowl and scraping it over the floor. Charlie tossed a scoop of dog biscuits into the bowl and left him to eat it, while she opened the fridge. With the power still off she didn’t want to let the cold out, so she grabbed a can and something in a wrapper at random. Carbonated water and hot dogs.

Breakfast of champions.

Peeling a vaguely gelatinous sausage out of its plastic wrapper, she took a bite as she went into the living room, washing it down with fizzy water. Danny was sleeping on the couch, mouth open and chest covered with crisp crumbs. The book he was reading lay open on his chest, finger marking his place.

The rattle in his chest wasn’t bad today. Not as bad as it had been before.

Charlie reached down and poked him in the arm, making him start awake inelegantly. He blinked blearily up at her, wiping his hand over his mouth.

‘Back already?’ he asked.

She checked his forehead with the back of her hand, ignoring his irritated attempt to bat it away. ‘It’s morning already. You take your meds?’

‘Yes, sis,’ he said, sitting up. ‘Job go ok?’

Charlie shrugged and pulled the cash out, dropping the wad into his lap. ‘Dad working?’

A faint bitterness twisted Danny’s mouth. ‘What else?’

‘Stick the cash in the lockbox,’ she told him. Dropping her half-eaten hotdog in his lap she added, ‘And eat something. I need to get some sleep.’

Charlie got halfway up the stairs when Danny yelled after her. ‘You got a letter from mom.’

Her foot stalled between one step and the next, biting her lip hard enough to hurt. She wanted to ignore that bit of news, she didn’t want to care. Unfortunately it rarely mattered what she wanted where Mom was involved. She dragged herself back downstairs, shoving her hands into her pockets and slouching back against the wall.

‘Another visiting order?’

‘Yeah,’ Danny said. ‘You going to go?’

‘Nope,’ Charlie said, kicking her foot against the carpet. Her heel raked tufts of grubby seagrass out of the weave.

‘She’s still our mom.’

‘Yeah, I’ve not hit my head,’ Charlie said. ‘Still our lying, cheating mom - that got herself caught running tech because she was screwing our uncle. Did I forget anything?’

Danny pulled a face and shoved his hand through his hair, dragging the sun-bleached tangles back from his face. ‘C’mon, Charlie, she sends an order every week. It’s got to be important.’

She shrugged. Even she could feel the resentment in the sullen line of her mouth. ‘Yeah, well, maybe she wants to tell us that our uncle is actually our biodad. Put the last nail in the family coffin.’

Putting that fear into words made her flinch, year-old panic fluttering behind her breastbone. During the arguments after it happened, Miles attempts to defend himself had been a study in self-incrimination. The mess in the hotel hadn’t been the first time, they were in love, it had been going on since before the shotgun marriage that Charlie had technically been present at. The fear quickly turned into anger - she could deal with anger -  and Charlie shoved herself off the wall.

‘You want to go, I’ll drive you,’ she said. ‘And you can tell her that I’ve nothing to say to her, ok?’

She stormed up the stairs and into her room, kicking the door shut behind her. Flopping on the bed she got a stranglehold on her pillow, burying her face into. When she breathed it smelled like shampoo and oil.

To hell with her mother, and her Uncle Miles.

They’d fucked up. She was taking up the slack, keeping everything together. They couldn’t ask for forgiveness on top of that.

 

4\. Cheap, Fast, and Reliable - Pick Two

Charlie wasn’t never sure if Ben was a saint or a schmuck.

Anyone else would have dumped Rachel after finding out she’d been sporadically boning his brother behind his back. Ben just said that ‘people are complicated, relationships are complicated’. He claimed she’d understand one day, when she was older.

Charlie took him breakfast down to the shop, setting it down on the table outside the Bathtub - the charged wire mesh set up around the nanite still. The workspace was still set up for two, with Rachel’s tools laid out waiting for her.

‘Danny said you didn’t eat dinner last night,’ she said.

Ben looked up, flipping the VR lens up from over his eyes. His forehead was pinched into a frown, but Charlie could hardly remember when it hadn’t been. He rubbed his eyes on his wrists, hands still mitted in the heavy carbon-fibre link-gloves. The air down here - in the pit dug out of damp, sandy soil and full of solder - made his eyes itch and his nose run.

‘What time is it?’

‘Nearly lunch.’

Ben checked his watch to make sure she was right, his mouth turning down in a grimace. ‘I told Danny I’d take him star-gazing during lights out.’

‘Yeah, well, you lied,’ Charlie said flatly. ‘I made you scrambled eggs with peppers.’

It was always scrambled eggs with peppers - except when it was stirfry. Which was, if Charlie was honest, just scrambled eggs with peppers without the eggs. Every now and again, Ben would make some vague comment about how Grandma Porter could teach her. She told him he could go if he was that interested.

She cooked because Dad was always busy and Danny was always sick. It wasn’t something she enjoyed, and she didn’t see why they should either.

Ben stripped off his gear and stepped out of the cage, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows and giving her a reproving look. ‘It wasn’t a lie, Charlie. I just lost track of time. I’ll make it up to him.’

Yeah. Add that to everything else he’d promised to make up for, and someday Ben would be buying her and Danny unicorns. Charlie let it lie though, she wanted to try and have a conversation that wasn’t a fight. Just this once.

She waited until Ben had forked a pile of eggs into his mouth, coughing as the spice hit his sinuses.

‘The contact in San Antonio, they said they’d got some long-haul jobs they’d put me forward for,’ Charlie said. She hurried on as Ben, his perma-frown deepening into an actually frown, reached for the milk. ‘It’d pay a lot more, Dad. I could bring in some money while you’re working on the next package.’

Ben gulped milk and wiped his mouth, shaking his head before he even got any words out. ‘Too risky, Charlie.’

‘How’s it more risky than running banned tech out of Texas?’ she asked. ‘Everyone knows there’s a black market here. Hell, after Mom got caught everyone knows we’re involved. At least in Cali-Am no-one would know who I was.’

‘It’s a two hour drive to San Antonio,’ Ben pointed out. ‘That’s fifteen extra hours worth of risk. I’m not letting you put yourself in that position.’

Charlie bit her lip until it hurt, throttling back hot, angry words. If he cared that much, how come she was running contraband that would get her a mandatory five term three times a month? That he didn’t have any right to tell her what to do - she was 20 and was he even her Dad? That he couldn’t stop her if she decided to.

Except if she left, Dad would be screwed. He drove like an old maid with an egg in his lap, and Danny’s chest was so bad that he’d have to have an oxygen tank in the back in case the dust set him off. They’d have to hook up with one of the tech-rat gangs, losing at least two-thirds of the profits and with Danny such a nice hostage.

Besides, they’d already had this argument a dozen times or more. All these arguments. Except for the Dad one. Charlie had never quite had the balls to bring that up. Yet.

‘Dad-’

‘No, Charlie. Besides, we need you here. Who’ll take care of Danny when I’m working, sweetheart?’

He wasn’t her kid. Danny was her brother, and she loved him, but why was it her job to take care of him? Maybe Rachel should have thought of that, before she went on a run and got her ass thrown in jail. Then she’d be here to take care of Danny, and there’d be no complaints about the food.

With nothing left to get out of the conversation except ‘not a fight’, Charlie gave in. She leaned on the counter and watched Ben eat until she get the words out without letting all the other stuff out with them.

‘I’m going into town,’ she said. ‘I should open the garage, do some work. I’ll not be back till late.’

Ben looked up, wiping the corners of his mouth on the kitchen roll. His eyes were sharp and annoyed. ‘You planning to stay open late?’

Shut up, Charlie pleaded mutely, just shut up. Please? ‘No.’

‘I’ve told you, Charlie,’ Ben snapped, slamming his hand on the table. ‘These drag races are an idiotic risk. You get back safe from a run to San Antonio and go straight back out to flout the law? You’re acting like Miles.’

That was the hope for ‘not a fight’ out the window.

 

5\. If it’s Under Control, You’re not Going Fast Enough

Even with the power up, it was pitch black this far into the Hills. Charlie had smoked the other drivers in the drag race. The Mustang wasn’t her Tempest - no illegal mech-hacks had popped this car’s cherry - but Charlie could have out-driven half the other racers in her grandma’s station-wagon.

Now she was just racing herself, cash in her pocket and adrenaline hot under her skin.

The kid in the Fairlane hadn’t been bad, though. Charlie spun the wheel, feeling the weight of the car as it turned, and took the turn almost sideways. Car was an over-styled heap, but the driver had the guts to push the turns.

The old Yves farm zipped by to her right, just a framework and a field full of rotted corn now. After a second, a sleek black car peeled out after her, turret lights strobing bright and hot against the dark.

There he was.

Charlie tapped the gas, pushing the engine just that little bit harder. The car stuck to her through a spin down the old ranch road. Nothing flashy, but good enough. She spun the wheel and veered onto the verge, kicking up a cloud of dust and sand. She skidded to a stop next to a listing mailbox and turned the engine off. Slouching down in the seat, she watched the black car pull in behind her and the door swing open.

Black on black, and his hand on the gun as he walked up to the car.

‘Agent Monroe,’ she said, rolling down the window and giving him her best ‘good girl really’ pout. ‘Whatever’s wrong? Is my tail light out?’

Monroe glared at her, eyes flat and blue in the near-pretty frame of his face. ‘Get out of the car, Charlotte.’

 

He fucked her against the hood of the Mustang, the metal hot against her ass and thighs. Charlie hooked her fingers into the kevlar vest and wrapped her legs around his waist. His hands gripped her hips, hard enough to leave his fingerprints inked into her skin, and he mouthed her name against the hollow of her throat.

It was rough and eager, bruised hips and fabric burn from rucked up clothes. Monroe bit kisses into her throat and over her collarbone, teeth, lips and the faint scrape of stubble. She twisted her fingers in his short curls - sandy brown bleached down in the sun - and tugged his head up.

‘No marks,’ she said.

He shifted and laid her back over the car, bracing himself on one elbow. Her body was stretched out long and tight, his cock buried deep inside her.  He buried his hand in her hair, fingers gripping the back of her neck.

‘What’s the matter, Charlotte,’ he growled, voice wire-taut with tension. ‘Don’t want anyone to know this dirty little secret?’

She laughed, a low, throaty sound that made him swear through gritted teeth and tighten his grip m her.

‘Isn’t that the point of a dirty secret, Monroe,’ she said. She arched her hips up against him, feeling the rough scratch of Kevlar against her stomach. ‘And if it was that small, I’d find something else to do with my night.’

He kissed her. Mostly, she thought, to shut her up. A hand shoved her shirt up, thumb dragging along her ribs, and cupped her breast. The bra was cheap lace, scratchy against her skin as he squeezed roughly.

This wasn’t the first time. Charlie hadn’t kept count, but it wasn’t the first time. It had happened often enough they knew the ritual of it, not often enough to dull the want of it.

With her body already strung like a wire from the race, Monroe brought her to orgasm easily. She clenched tight around his cock, pleasure contracting between her thighs like an ache and then spilling out down her nerves. A scream wrung its way out of her throat, piercing in the silent farmland. She grabbed Monroe’s shoulder, her nails digging in through his shirt, as if that would help hold her down.

Monroe watched her come with odd intensity. He always did, like he was taking notes on the way it shattered her. It wasn’t what Charlie wanted. She didn’t want him to know anything about her. She just wanted him to fuck her, to be the cock that would piss off everyone she was angry at. Her mom, her dad, her Uncle Miles, even Monroe himself - who’d brought the charges against Rachel, who’d been in the papers escorting her into court - who hated the fact he wasn’t in control around her.

All he needed to know that that he wanted her.

She dragged him down and kissed him, biting his lip hard enough to make him jerk. The movement of his cock inside her sent little shock-waves of hot pleasure cramping through her stomach.

‘We done?’ she asked, lips sliding over his. ‘Or you good for another lap?’

He thrust into her, hard enough to jolt her against the metal. ‘It’s fucking, not a race, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘You can’t win.’

Yeah, she could. She would. Monroe didn’t need to know that though. Charlie stretched back over the hood, hands braced against the windscreen, and let Monroe wind her up into another orgasm.

He licked the sweat off her skin, mouth avid as he nuzzled the curve of her breast. This time she let the no-marks rule go, arching up into his teeth and eager lips. The hot prickle of pain - the scrape and nip of his teeth in counterpoint to the thrusts that jarred her - nearly made her come again.

She clenched her teeth against it, suddenly convinced that was part of the game.  If he’d lasted another few thrusts, she’d have lost - but he came just as she was balanced on the brink. He growled against her throat, hand twisting in her hair until it hurt, and he sprawled heavily on top of her. The kevlar dug into her stomach and the sweaty weight of him quickly got oppressive.

Charlie shoved him. ‘Off.’

He snorted against her shoulder and pushed himself off her, stripping the condom off his cock. First time they’d not thought of that. Monroe had pulled out like her pussy was on fire, getting come all over the paintjob on her car.

Babies were not part of the plan for either of them.

She wanted to get out of here one day, and Monroe… When the kid was twenty, he’d be dead probably. She snorted at herself.

‘What’s so funny?’ Monroe asked.

‘You’re really old,’ Charlie said, sitting up and sliding off the car. His car. She didn’t make that mistake twice. Hitching her shorts up, she buttoned them while Monroe gave her that steady, challenged look that had gotten her bent over her car in the first place.

‘I didn’t hear you complaining,’ he said.

‘Well, no,’ Charlie said, reaching up to pat his cheek. Her hand lingered against the slight roughness of his jaw, until she drew back with a twitch of discomfort. ‘You’re very pretty, and you’re a good fuck. Ten years though, and I’ll be helping you over the road.’

He grabbed her arm, fingers wrapping around her narrow wrist like manacles. She tried to yank free, then subsided resentfully when he just tightened his grip.

‘Ten years,’ he said, ‘And I’ll be director of Tech Control, while if you aren’t careful, Charlotte, you’ll be in a jail cell next to Rachel.’

She tilted her head, watching him through her hair and widening her eyes innocently. ‘What for, speeding on ranch roads?’ She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed his chin mockingly. ‘You’ll have to put half the state in jail, Agent.’

It surprised her when he shook her, hard enough to click her teeth. Usually - unless he was fucking her - he never got physical with her. Monroe was a battery of control and repressed need.

‘You think I’m an idiot, Charlotte?’ he asked. ‘You think I’ve not got a damn good idea who’s hauling tech in that piece of shit Tempest between and San Antonio? I catch you, and this? This thing we do, it won’t mean anything. You’ll go to jail, and Miles will never forgive me.’

‘Good,’ Charlie snapped, twisting her wrist until he had to let her go or hurt her. She stepped up to him, chin up and shoulders back. ‘I’ve never asked you for anything, Agent Monroe. I don’t expect anything from you either, certainly not your oh so generous concern. And if ‘this thing we do’ isn’t working for you anymore? Feel free to stop turning up. I won’t have any trouble finding someone else to scratch that itch.’

The muscle along the ridge of his jaw clenched. ‘Maybe I’ll do that.’

Charlie smirked at him. ‘Yeah, and maybe you won’t. Come on. Everyone else in the county hates you. Where else are you gonna get laid?’

She shoved past him and stalked back to her car. The brief...unwound...feeling after she’d come was gone, her guts all in knots and tempers again. Maybe next time, she’d not turn up.

Getting into the car, she slammed the door and spun it on the rear tires. Monroe stepped back, mouth moving in curses she couldn’t hear over the engine, with one arm crooked to protect his eyes from the dust cloud.

She drove off without looking back.

 

6\. He Who Turns Least Wins

Cynthia had spluttered her third-hand, twenty-year old Chevy into the garage first thing in the morning, with a pile of marking in a nappy bag and tears threatening to ruin her bruise-hiding eye-make up. She hadn’t a pot to piss in - it wasn’t cheap keeping her husband in booze - but she’d been Danny’s teacher. Charlie remembered her coming out to the house when Danny was sick, giving him books and sitting with him long enough to talk him through his maths.

‘It’s probably nothing,’ Charlie said, tying her hair back from her face. ‘I’ll have a look and drop it off at the school this afternoon.’

Cynthia had stumbled through surprised gratitude, checked her watch and fled to try and get to the school on time. Once she was gone, Charlie dropped the gate and killed the lights. She turned the engine on, babying the gas pedal until it reluctantly caught, and checked under the popped hood. Miniature arcs of electricity popped and snapped on the metal.

Spark plugs. Easy enough fix. The rest of the engine was held together with rust, mouse droppings, and hope. Charlie scratched the back of her neck, calculating how much she could patch by the afternoon. It wasn’t like it would break her bank. Even without the sixty grand in the house, Charlie made good money doing mods on the drag cars. More than she’d make wiping brats snotty noses and trying to teach them to count.

She wiped her hands on her hips, adding more oil to the coveralls, and walked over to open the doors up again and let some air in. The door rattled up, dropping dust and spiders, and on the other side there were battered boots, even more battered jeans and the sheriff’s star on her Uncle Miles' chest.

‘Fuck off.’

She turned her back on him and stalked away, dragging boxes out of the shelves to hunt for parts. The back of her neck itched with being stared at. When she looked around, Miles was putting one of the coffees he was holding on her desk.

It made her hurt inside her chest, this hot knot of anger, betrayal, and panic. Before they’d found out he was a total asshole, this had been their morning ritual. He’d drop by with coffee and shoot the breeze with her for a couple of minutes, talk about cars and invite her out to work on his car. It had been Miles who’d got her into cars and fixing them in the first place.

Except all the time he’d been her awesome Uncle Miles, who listened when she bitched about her parents and gave her a place to crash when she was too pissed to face going home, he’d been...just a total asshole.

‘Take your coffee and stick it up your ass, Miles,’ she said.

‘Some mornings I feel like that might help,’ Miles said. ‘Charlie, c’mon, you gotta talk to me.’

Charlie turned around and propped her hands on her hips, cocking her head to the side like she actually needed to think. ‘Yeah, no I don’t.’

‘Kid, I didn’t want to arrest Rachel. I loved her. I -’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Charlie said, turning around. She waved a set of spark plugs in his general direction. ‘My Dad loves her. Danny loves her. You’re like her, the only person you love is yourself and anyone who makes you feel good about yourself. So, sorry, that’s not going to be me. Not anymore.’

He scratched his jaw. ‘I guess I deserve that,’ he said. ‘Thing is, Charlie, you’re all I got. I’m not giving up on you. Not when all it costs is a coffee and some abuse first thing. See you tomorrow.’

Miles gave her a crooked shrug and headed out. Charlie hated the fact she wanted to call him back, hated that she felt so shit for hurting him. It felt like a betrayal of Ben, like Miles mattered more to her.

He didn’t. Ben was her Dad. Even if sometimes she hated him for needing her so much.

Charlie sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. Damn it. She picked up the coffee and took a drink, the sweetness of all the cream and syrup nearly drowning out the coffee taste. It even bugged her that Miles knew she’d want vanilla caramel.

‘Asshole,’ she grumbled to the empty garage and the spiders. Taking another drink, she balanced the coffee cup on the roof of Cynthia’s car and went to work.

Two hours later, she’d changed the spark plugs, oil and brake fluid and had the car up on blocks as she worked under. She heard the low rumble of a car outside, the engine coughing as it was turned off. Then someone kicked her foot.

‘I’m looking for Charles Matheson,’ he said. ‘The Sheriff’s kid.’

Maybe if he’d whipped his cock out and pissed on her, he could have got off to a worse start. Charlie pushed herself out from under the car, fingers curled around the bumper, and squinted up at him. Long legs and dark curls were about all she could make out with the sun behind him.

‘Charlotte,’ she said. ‘And I’m Ben Matheson’s kid. That’s the Matheson that isn’t an asshole. Move.’

He stepped to the side and offered her a hand up. It was neat and clean, nails scrubbed and clipped straight. Charlie ignored it and boosted herself to her feet, sliding past him to grab a handful of wet wipes from the desk.

‘Sorry.’ He gave her a grin that Charlie imagined had dropped a lot of panties. Under the curls, he was good-looking in a smooth way. The sort of guy who knew it, too. She glanced over his shoulder at the dusty white Fairlane in the drive. That was familiar, she’d last seen it in her rearview mirror. ‘When the guy said Charlie, I just assumed...’

‘That the name came with a dick. It happens,’ Charlie said, shrugging. She leaned against the desk and scrubbed at her hands, alcohol stinging the ragged cuticles. ‘What do you want, Mr Monroe?’

It felt odd laying that name on someone who wasn’t Monroe.

‘How do you know...’

‘Small town,’ Charlie said. ‘Uncle Miles is your Dad’s best friend; your Dad locked my mom up. Small town.’

‘You left out, my mom was your uncle’s fiancee.’

Charlie balled the stained wipes up and chucked them in the bin. ‘My life is common knowledge round here. I like to let other people pretend privacy exists.’

He laughed, a little rough and a lot more interesting than the polished smile. Charlie caught herself grinning back and bit the expression back, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

‘I want that,’ he said, jerking his thumb at the car. ‘To go faster.’

Charlie raised her eyebrows. ‘Then drive it better and stop wussing out on the turns.’

Suspicion narrowed his dark eyes. Those he hadn’t got from his Dad, Charlie thought, and the memory of the last time she’d looked into Monroe’s husky pale eyes made heat flush through her stomach.

‘You always seem a couple of steps ahead of me,’ he said.

‘That’s because I don’t brake on turns.’

‘You’re the Mustang?’

‘I prefer to put it as, I’m the winner,’ she said, smirking at him. Pushing herself off the desk she scratched her eyebrow. ‘C’mon, then let me have a look under the hood.’

He stepped in front of her, all lean length and black clothes. ‘You mean the car, or me?’

Charlie tilted her head and looked him up and down. He was a bit too pleased with himself for her taste, but she liked his laugh.

‘Car,’ she said, shouldering past him. Then she glanced back over her shoulder. ‘...first.’

The grin that creased his face was startled and open. Charlie kind of liked that too. It had been a while since she’d just liked anything. Or anyone. Her and Monroe - that ‘thing we do’ - that wasn’t about liking, it was too complicated for that.

This was probably complicated too, but that wasn’t really Charlie’s problem was it?

  
7\. First Place Loser

‘You’re an odd kind of girl, Charlie,’ Connor said.

Charlie popped a chunk of candy floss in her mouth, sweetness melting over her tongue. She licked her fingers and rolled her head to the side to look at him. ‘Yeah?’

Connor nodded, his profile painfully sharp against the darkness. ‘Yeah. When you told me I’d gotten lucky, I thought I was going to get laid. Not given a driving lesson, and taken star-gazing.’

They were lying on an old blanket in the middle of a corn field, drinking cold beer and eating gas-station candy-floss. The stars floated over them, studded into the black velvet sky.

‘If you aren’t having fun, we can head back to town,’ she said.

He stole a handful of candy-floss from the bag, licking the sticky sugar mess from his fingers. ‘I didn’t say that,’ he said. ‘I mean, one day I’d like to take you to the city and show you how we have fun there.’

‘You’re from Iowa.’ Charlie gave him a sidelong look, wrapping her lips around Iowa.

A quick, real scowl flicked over his face and was gone,folded under the affable mask. ‘Is there anything about me that isn’t public knowledge in this town?’

Charlie looked back up at the sky. She’d used to do this with Rachel. Her time with Mom, away from Danny for just half an hour. It made her feel wistful thinking about it. God knows why she’d thought it was a good idea to bring Connor out here.

‘No-one knows why you’re here,’ she said. ‘Everyone has theories, no one knows.’

‘What are the theories?’

She shrugged, feeling the corn stubble scrape her shoulder through the blanket. ‘Usual ones. You got some poor, dumb girl in trouble, you pissed off the wrong person, or you fell in with bad company.’

Connor reached over and tucked her hair behind her ear, fingers trailing along her jaw. ‘Company seems pretty good, from where I sit.’

She laughed. It pissed him off, but she couldn’t help it. It was just so corny, and she kinda loved it anyhow.

‘Smooth,’ she said, sitting up. ‘Look, it’s not my business. Maybe you just wanted to get to know your Dad.’

Connor caught her arm and pulled her down, so she was leaning along his side. ‘Maybe I got into some real bad company, Charlie. You ever hear of Oscar Nunez? Well, I used to work for him.’

Charlie rolled over on top of him, straddling his waist. ‘That’s either a lie, in which case you’re stupid,’ she said. ‘Or it’s the truth, and you’re an idiot.’

He laughed uncertainly, squinting up at her. ‘I don’t get it?’

The idea should have welded her legs shut. Nunez ran every tech-rat gang out of Mexico - if Connor was one of his then he was more dangerous than he looked. If Connor was one of his, then Nunez had realised the Matheson operation was still running even with Ma Baker-Matheson in jail.

Charlie still kissed Connor. He tasted like candy floss, his lips gritty with melted blue sugar.

His hands cupped her ass, squeezing through her jeans. The hitch of his hips was evidence that whatever else he was lying about, wanting to get laid wasn't one of them. He went very still when she put the blade of her hold-out to his throat, the point dimpling the big blue vein under his jaw,

'I hope to fuck you're just really kinky,' he breathed shakily. He swallowed hard, the jolt of his Adam's apple breaking the skin against the knife. A trickle of blood ran down his throat, wicked up into his collar. 'Charlie?'

'Do you work for Nunez, Connor?'

'Why do you care?'

'While I've got the knife, surely all that matters is that I do?'

Charlie hooked her finger in his collar and pulled it down, baring the clumsy crescent scarred into his collarbone. She shook her head in irritated disbelief. 'You're an idiot. Only reason Nunez wants you is because it gives him a hook in Monroe.'

Crap. Did she have to tell Monroe this? The instinct was there, the fear he'd not believe her or think she was playing some game. It wasn't that she cared.

'I know,' Connor said, pulling his hands off her ass and holding them up so she could see he was harmless. 'He made that real clear. Look, I did work for him, but I don't anymore. Dad pulled me out with my ass intact, dragged me up here to lie low. I just...I just wanted to impress you, Charlie, and you don't seem like an easy girl to impress.'

She stared into his face, trying to read dark eyes by moonlight. Fear, the memory of that surprised, open grin, and the fact she didn't think she had it in her to actually DO anything with the knife made her put it away. She scrambled off him, sweat sticking her shirt to her skin as she moved.

'It didn't work,' she said.

Shaking her head - at herself, at him -  she headed back up to the road, scrambling up the hill and over the low fence. The car was still there, parked diagonally in the pull off. She should have just left him there, let him walk his Nunez employed ass back to town.

She didn't. When he came toppling over the fence, she was still there with the engine running and the door unlocked for him. The idiot had stopped to pick up the blanket and candy floss.

'Thought I was gonna have to call Dad for a lift there,' he said, leaning down to peer in the window at her. 'Maybe you were a little impressed?'

'Nope,' she said. 'And you'd have been walking. It's a dead zone up here. Now get in the car, before I change my mind.'

 

She should have cut him loose once she dropped him off in town. Except, she liked him. She liked that he was an idiot, liked his rough laugh, and his issues with the Dad he'd been happy to hate until the man risked his life to save Connor's. Most of all, she liked that he didn't care about her relationship with her mom, or how Danny's breathing was today, or whether or not Miles was still bringing her coffee every morning.

All Connor cared about was that she could out-drive him with her eyes shut and she had nice tits.

Charlie fucked him in the narrow bed in Monroe's guest-room, straddling lean hips and pinning his wrists to the mattress. His knuckles left bloody smears on the sheet where they'd split, and bruises the shape of fists were rising like a blue blush over his ribs and stomach.

'You're an idiot,' she said, leaning down to make her point right into his face.

He grinned at her. Not the real smile she saw every so often, the sleek, polished one he worse like a mask over his teeth. 'You keep saying that, but here you are. What is it, Charlie? I finally impressed you?'

She shook her head, hair trailing over his chest in heavy tangles. 'You hit that guy with a fucking wrench. We had to drag you off him. That’s not impressive, that’s homicidal.'

‘Some of the girls’ I grew up with...’

‘You’re from Iowa,’ she reminded him.

He hesitated, something shifty sliding behind his eyes. ‘Yeah, but I didn’t live there much. Mom sent me live with her aunt when I was a kid. In Mexico.’

‘That’s where you met Nunez?’

He nodded, his expression closed in and over. Charlie thought about asking questions, but after what happened earlier...she figured that whatever Connor had been to Nunez, he’d not being doing anything as simple as driving cars.

She kissed him again, tasting blood and stale adrenaline on him. Sliding back she braced her arms against his chest, fingers spread over the tanned spread of skin, and moved on top of him. Sweet, sticky pleasure built between her legs, tugging on her stomach muscles with eager twitches. Under her fingers, Connor’s arms tightened - sinews and muscle standing out - but he didn’t move.

Dark eyes watched her with an odd intensity. Maybe he was more like his Dad than he wanted to admit. Than she wanted to admit.

Sitting back she reached down between her legs, fingers dipping into the curls to stroke the slick flesh. She bit her lip, folding the flesh between her teeth, and tilted her head back. With his hands free, Connor caught her hips and tugged her down.

His cock slid deeper inside her, her knuckles bumping against his stomach. Charlie gasped and squirmed, excitement firing through her. She moved quicker on top of him, his hips arching up to meet her.

Connor sat up and kissed her breasts, licking and nipping at the tender skin. He wrapped his lip around her nipple, sucking it into his mouth. His tongue traced circles around it and his teeth pinched it - careful to hurt, careful not to hurt too much.

He groaned, the sound muffled between her breasts, and dragged her down so he was buried deep inside her. He came with a shudder and a bruising grip on her hips, any noise he wanted to make clenched behind his teeth.

Rolling them over he slid out of her, cock softening in the condom against his thigh, and slid down her body. He cupped her ass in his hands, lifting her up, and buried his face between her thighs. The scruff of his beard scraped her thighs as his tongue dipped and pushed and swirled, making her whimper and catch at his head.

She turned her face into the pillow to stifle her cry when she came, filling her nose with the smell of Connor and his hair gel. He lingered, even after she’d come, mouth slow and eager on the inner skin of her thighs and lower stretch of her stomach.

He finally crawled up and sprawled out next to her, fitting himself around her on the narrow mattress. His knee tucked between hers, his arm crooked under her head. It was too much like cuddling for Charlie’s liking, but she was too relaxed to move and kicking him out of his own bed seemed harsh.

‘Charlie,’ he said, fingers toying with her hair. There was something insinuating in his voice, like one of her customer’s trying to talk her into taking chickens as trade for carburetors. ‘When I worked for Nunez, there was this guy. Flynn. He did business with Nunez, but...last I heard he’s looking for new partners.’

She stiffened. Connor put his fingers against her jaw and made her look at him. ‘It’s just an idea. You drive, I do the dirty work…we could rake it in.’

The ‘no’ should have been automatic. It didn’t come out though. Maybe she couldn’t go - family was an anchor it was hard to cut loose - but she could pretend. The more money she had, the more danger she got herself into...the easier it was to pretend.

She breathed against Connor’s lips, close enough she could feel him blink. ‘Doing what?’

Before he could answer the door swung open. ‘Connor. Your mother is-’

Charlie rolled over and looked at Monroe in the door of the room. She’d never seen him out of his uniform, she realised suddenly. Or she supposed she had, when she was a kid and Monroe’s relationship with Miles had been simpler. She didn’t remember it though. It was weird to see him in jeans and a t-shirt, weirder to see his face blank with shock.

‘Agent Monroe,’ Charlie said. ‘This is...awkward.’

An arm draped over her chest, shielding her breasts from view. Conner tucked his chin into her shoulder. ‘Hey, Dad, you know Charlie right?’ She could hear the smirk in his voice.

OK, what did she want to see on Monroe? Anger? Hurt? Nothing?

Whatever it was - and maybe she’d work it out later - she didn’t get it. All she saw in Monroe’s pale eyes was the lock down of control. He looked her up and down, eyes lingering for a second at the wetness between her legs, and then he bent down grabbed her clothes from the floor.

‘Get dressed,’ he said, voice low and gravel rough. ‘Get out.’

Connor tightened his grip on her. ‘What the fuck? I can’t have someone over now? I’m not fucking twelve anymore, Dad.’

‘You can have a guest,’ Monroe said flatly. ‘Not her. Charlotte. I said, to get dressed and get out. I don’t care what order you do it in.’

‘You can’t-’ Connor spluttered.

‘Shut up,’ Monroe said through tight teeth.

She slid off the bed and stood up, getting dressed with slow deliberation. Jeans first, then her t-shirt. She grabbed her boots from the floor last, palming her keys from the table. Monroe watched every moment.

‘I’ll see you later, Conner,’ Charlie said. Then she folded her lips sweetly. ‘Agent Monroe. So good to see you again.’

She slid past him, not making any attempt to avoid touching him, and left.

  


[ http://justacarguy.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/best-quotes-and-sayings-about-car.html ](http://justacarguy.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/best-quotes-and-sayings-about-car.html)


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